The charity dedicated to funding critical medical research.
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Hope for Health is a unique, feisty organization formed by a recovering patient to find creative and effective ways of raising money and help to 'pay-back' his doctor and fund research and potential for a cure. Ultimately, Hope for Health believes its work will help aid doctors and researchers in their already remarkable work treating those with cancer, and also working to find a solution to this cruel disease. Hope for Health was founded in the fall of 2000 by Toronto dentist Dr. Erle Strauss who was successfully treated after facing a severe case of high grade Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He quickly began his work, giving back to his community and the medical world the best way he knew how. Hope for Health's goals were to support those in the medical community, most notably Dr. Neil Berinstein, director of the Advance Therapeutics Program at the Toronto-Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre. Hope for Health has already raised considerable funding, spread lots of enthusiasm and shared plenty of success stories - and the list is quickly growing. And as a registered charity in Canada, Hope for Health's dedication to ethics and accountability takes a back seat to nothing and is of vital importance. Hope for Health was born out of the personal experiences of Toronto dentist Erle Strauss and media executive Norman Evans. Dr. Strauss was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer in 1995 at 47 - after the work of a cancer specialist and Strauss' own determination, his cancer went into remission. Evans, a long-time friend and patient of Strauss', had been facing his own battle with heart disease - like his friend, Evans is recovering. A blockage in the main artery to his heart was healed not through any medical procedure, but rather by the exercise 'prescription' from the Toronto Rehabilitation Centre, a move to healthy eating and homeopathy. The two quickly decided that they wanted to return the life-saving favor they received from the medical community. After launching Hope for Health in 2000, Strauss and Evans began their work, coming up with unique ways of raising money, as well as collecting and publishing information for the thousands touched with lymphoma and other cancers. The mandate for Hope for Health is to share their own stories of success and work towards creating more health survivals. It is also raising money for research, fellowships and equipment that the Canadian medical community simply can't afford by cutting through the always frustrating bureaucracy faced by doctors and patients alike. "What we envision is a portal where anyone touched by lymphoma and other diseases can go to receive information, contribute to this cause and share their success with the world," says Evans. "We can help others pay back to the medical community in the most effective way possible." Hope for Health's first success came in May of 2002 when it raised funds for the Toronto-Sunnybrook Cancer Medical Research Centre to purchase one of Canada's first DNA analyzers. The centre's director, Dr. Neil Berinstein, who was Strauss' doctor, has always been a supporter of Hope for Health. Berinstein said the analyzer is helping the centre diagnose cancers and work with stem cell transplantation better than it could before, as well as aid technicians and doctors to examine more closely patient's cells and DNA, allowing them to diagnose the disease in its earliest stages. The machine helps the centre harvest a cancer patient's own DNA from their own cancer cells and create an individualized vaccine, that not only boosts a patient's immune system, but is also believed to be able to prevent the creation of new cancer cells. "It's a very sophisticated machine that will allow us to do some very sensitive monitoring of our patients in stem cell transplantation." Berinstein said. "We've already had some interesting results."
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